With the hour I have been spending in the garden each day, I am really seeing some progress.

Herbs

The herb pots are doing well. I planted the new starts in pots with some herbs that are coming back – all seem to be doing well. Even the sorrell, which Carl decided to transplant into the watering can, is doing ok. So far I have:

Oregano

Cuban Oregano

Parsely

Cilantro

Sage

Pineapple Sage

Rosemary

Taragon

Chives

Garlic Chives

Lovage

Sorrel

Fennel

I have saved a pot for basil, plus some space in the oregano/chives pot. I won’t plant the basil until June or so. I am thinking I might make an little herb garden for my step-brother. I have a small pot I had flowers in last year. I will put in it parsley, oregano, sage, taragon (in the middle – it is the tallest) and a viola. I bought an herb pot last year with a viola and it was so pretty – plus they came back this year.

Our garlic is coming up great this year – I need to fertilize again, but for the most part all I do is weed the bed and transplant in the garlic volunteers from other areas.

Yesterday I pulled the winter mulch off the asparagus beds. We are starting to get some shoots, so I need to fertilize and put out slug killer.

I planted the Chilean Jasmine yesterday. That was a bigger chore than I thought. The dirt in the area to plant it was clay. So I worked mulch and soil into the ground and Carl and I broke up the clay chunks. He loved doing that. Hopefully this will do well, we miss having a fragant plant near the deck.

I made the ham/carrot bundles over the weekend and subsituted the basil leaf with a leaf of Pineapple Sage. It was very good.

in the photos of the garden, I have a photo of a pot with red film and a wall of water. This is an experiment I am trying this year. Though I use the water walls and red film after I have planted my tomatos, I thought I would try it before I plant to warm the ground up a little. I would like to try a container, fast-growing, cherry-type tomato this year. At the Master Gardener’s tomato sale last year, they had one called a Tumbler Hybrid, which is made for containers and is supposed to ripen in 49 days. Hopefully they will have it this year and we can try it.

Besides many varieties of basil, I would also like to get some chervil, marjoram and thyme for the herb pots. Last year I had a rosemary called Tuscan Blue – I may try to find that again also.